1 Corinthians 3:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Do you see how he softens his speech, lest they be hardened if he said, "Who is this man or that?" Both things are unpleasant: to say, "Who is this man or that?" and to say, "Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything." How then does he soften these words? He takes the humiliation upon himself: "Who is Paul, and who is Apollos?" He also refers everything to God, Who gave all things. After saying that he planted, and that he who plants is nothing, he adds, "but God Who gives the growth."

See how, by humbling himself and Apollos, he makes tolerable the humbling of the wise and wealthy leaders of Corinth. He teaches that all the good things given to us are to be referred to Him.

Therefore, if even the apostles could plant and water nothing unless God gave the increase, how much more is this true of me, of you, and of any man of our time who considers himself a teacher.

What has been planted sometimes dies, and what has been watered sometimes bears little fruit, if God does not give life-giving power. In relation to the worship of God, man is nothing and is needed only for service. He is honored only as a servant, and in no other way. Anything else is an offense against God.

There may indeed be teachers. Yet when they begin silently to consider what the ineffable wisdom of God must be, which teaches human minds without sound, they think differently. They also consider how this same wisdom makes the labor of preachers vain, unless it disposes the minds of the hearers. Then their own teaching at once appears to them as nothing. For neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God Who gives the increase.

After reasoning about the spiritual and psychic man, the holy Apostle Paul directly calls the Corinthians not spiritual, but carnal and foolish babes.

He does this because they are agitated and divided over teachers, who are merely God's fellow-workers in God's field (1 Cor 3:1-9).

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.

For when one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not carnal? Who is Paul? Who is Apollos?

They are only ministers through whom you believed. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

He who plants and he who waters are one. For we are God's fellow-workers. You are God's field, God's building."

Speaking of the Corinthians' division into parties according to teachers, the Apostle Paul again calls the Corinthians carnal.

They were looking from a lower human point of view, whereas here everyone must be seen as ministers of God.

Or they must be seen as workers performing various tasks, according to what the Master and Lord entrusts each to do in His holy field, the Kingdom of God.

This field is made to grow by Him alone and is harvested for Him alone (Mt 13:40).

Besides being called a field, the Corinthian Christians are also compared to a building, whose deepest foundation is Jesus Christ Himself.

The apostles are compared to builders. One lays the foundation, and another lays further courses.

"For without God's cooperation, labor is vain" (Theodoret).

Therefore "the Apostle refers everything to God, Who has given everything" (St. Chrysostom).

He does this "teaching that one must attend to Him alone, and refer to Him everything good that is established in us" (Theophylact).

The one who plants and the one who waters are not something decisively and exclusively important in the work of ordering your salvation.

Their labor is not nothing, as he will say afterward. Yet your conversion to faith and your establishment in it were not accomplished among you by their power.

We spoke the word, but grace went with the word and accomplished faith in you.

We performed the mysteries for you. But grace came to dwell in you and began to abide in you not from our action, but from God's ordering (Augustine, De gratia Christi, book 1, ch. 25).